Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

January 5, 2026

Welcome to the Workplace Multiplier newsletter. Published Monday to Friday, equipping you to achieve your professional goals faster and without burnout or overwhelm.

Your 2026 priorities are the problem

Howdy

You started 2026 with a list.

Revenue goals. Leadership development. Better work-life balance. Strategic visibility. Maybe five priorities. Maybe ten.

All important. All urgent. All competing for the same 40 hours a week. Assuming you don’t also add long daily hours or weekends to it.

Here's what nobody told you: that list is why you'll burn out by March.

Not because you're not capable. Because you're operating on a foundational lie that most professionals never question:

"If I work on everything that matters, everything will improve."

It won't.

I learned this the expensive way, doing everything at 100% and trying to prove I could do it all. The harder I worked, the less I had to show for it.

Until I asked a different question.

Not "What should I focus on?" but "What ONE result would make everything else easier or irrelevant?"

For me in 2025, it was this: Build a replicable system that delivers client transformations without requiring my direct time.

Not "grow revenue AND certify coaches AND expand the curriculum." ONE result that would unlock all of those.

I said no to opportunities that didn't serve that goal. I even turned down an advisory role that would have paid well but drained my capacity.

By December, I had the fully systematized frameworks that deliver transformational results to my clients, and more capacity in my calendar than I'd had in five years.

Because I protected one priority instead of dividing my focus across many.

Here's your 48-hour decision:

What ONE result would fundamentally change your professional reality in 2026, regardless of what else happens?

Not a list. Not "these three things." ONE result so clear you could explain it to a stranger in ten seconds.

Write it down right now. One sentence. Then ask yourself:

"If this was my ONLY professional goal for the next 90 days, what would I stop doing this week?"

The professionals who break through in 2026 won't be the ones who worked on everything. They'll be the ones who protected their ONE result from the tyranny of everything else.

What's your ONE result?

Reply and tell me. I read every response, and I'll challenge you if your answer is too broad to protect.

Keep winning at work and in life,

Tola Akinsulire

Your Strategic Workplace Mentor

P.S. If you're thinking "But Tola, I have multiple responsibilities; I can't just focus on one thing," you're right. You'll still do your job. But without ONE strategic result driving your decisions, you're just maintaining. And maintaining doesn't get you recognized, promoted, or fulfilled. It gets you exhausted.